This dish requires for the venison to be marinated for 1 hour and it also needs 2 hours cooking in a hot water bath.
If your meat comes as a single piece, just cut a small part of one end of it and cut that in smaller cubes. It will add a lot of flavour to the sauce and the texture and flavour will be a little different to the main sous vide cooke piece.
Ingredients (Serves 2)
- 1 piece of venison tenderloin, approx. 350-400g
- Extra virgin olive oil, approx. 30ml
- 12 dried prunes
- 50ml Metaxa brandy, or other
- 200ml red wine
- 200ml beef stock
- 2 shallots, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2-3 sprigs of thyme
- 2-3 all spice berries
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 carrot, peeled and grated
- 100g basmati rice (wild, brown and white)
- A knob of butter
- A sprig of parsley, finely chopped
Method
Remove the thin strip of tenderloin attached to the main part, chop and set aside in the fridge.
Rub the thick part of the tenderloin with some of the olive oil and place in a sous vide bag. Pour the red wine, garlic and shallots as well as thyme sprigs in the bag and seal. Leave to marinate for 1 hour.
Preheat your water bath to 540C.
Take the tenderloin out of the bag and pat dry, reserving the marinade. Place the venison in a new clean bag, seal and cook in the water bath for 2 hours.
While the tenderloin is cooking, chop roughly six of the prunes and put them together with the whole ones in a bowl with the brandy. Every so often move them around in the liquid so they all plumb up.
Next, strain the shallots, garlic and herbs from the wine of the marinade. Bring a pan with 2-3 tbsp of the olive oil to a medium heat. Add the chopped up pieces of venison and brown all over. Lower the heat a little and add the shallots, garlic, thyme and grated carrot and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the wine and let it evaporate. Add the prunes and the brandy and again let any liquid evaporate before adding the stock, all spice berries and bay leaf. Cover with a lid, lower the heat right down and cook the meat and prunes till the meat is tender (45-50 minutes). If necessary, add a little hot water as you want enough liquid to create your sauce.
Remove the pieces of venison and the whole prunes with a slotted spoon and keep to the side. Discard the bay leaves and the staks of thyme.
Using a stick blender liquidise the contents of the saucepan so as to have a lovely thick sauce. Return the pieces of venison and whole prunes into the sauce and season with some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
To cook the rice, 20 minutes before the end of cooking the venison in the water bath, bring a saucepan of water with a pinch of salt to the boil. Drop in the wild rice and cook for 10 minutes. Add the brown rice and cook for a further 5 minutes before adding the while rice. Continue cooking till the white rice is tender and drain. Place back in the saucepan and cover. When you are ready to serve, use a fork to separate the rice and make it fluffy.
While the rice is cooking and the sous vide cooking time has ended, take the venison out of the bag and pat dry. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bring a clean frying pan to a high heat and add 2 tbsp of olive oil. Brown the venison all over, add the butter and spoon it over the venison. Remove the venison from the fire, cover it with kitchen foil and leave it to rest for 3-4 minutes.
Using a dariole mould, serve the rice, cut the venison and place next to the rice and spoon the sauce over everything or around the plate. Sprinkle with some parsley.
Serve with some cream spinach or griddled purple sprouting broccoli on the side.